Sidetracked Charley

Some decades ago I applied for a job working on an island. A small island.  One with only a couple miles of road. No car needed.  The company provided golf carts. And evidently boats for diving trips just off shore. I had just gotten my open water diving certification and it seemed ideal. Then someone raised the specter of island fever. I had been snowed in most of a winter in a Colorado ski resort and certainly understood cabin fever but don't we all want to be stranded on an island? Besides I would have thirty days twice a year to go back to the mainland USA. And in a moment of stark awareness I realized I would probably spend every single minute of those 60 days driving. Driving has been my way of escape since I was 16. No destination necessary. Just hop in the car and drive. I may have even fallen in love with photography because a camera in the passenger seat gave me an excuse to just drive.  But it doesn't take an island or a snow storm to close you into fe...

I provide a doggie vacay service at my home, and lately I have encountered barrier frustration and aggression at the gate. Dogs develop frustration when something holds them back from interacting with a certain stimuli in the environment like the dog on the other side of the gate. Or a leash, a fence, a tether, a baby gate, being in a car. . . really any type of barrier or restraint. The frustration shows itself in a whole range of "inappropriate" behavior. Surely this is not just a thing with are canine friends. Other animals in cages like at zoos? Or humans in cages like at our southern border? Or prisons? I googled. And if you are to look at the results you would assume it is just dogs. And just real and solid barriers like gates. Not willing to let it go because I could see equivalent human responses if not what they were perceiving as a barrier. Maybe in humans it is called something else like cabin fever? Living in the mountains I am aware of cabin fever which...

Manual Focus Required I like winter. Really I do. I have enjoyed winter sports more than summer sports much of my life. For over two decades I taught skiing. And when a skiing accident ended that I adopted snowshoeing as my winter sport. Photography takes me out when others stay in. I live in the mountains because I like moderate summers and most months of winter. I am, however, not fond of December snows. They just seem rude. They arrive with high winds and plunging temps. They come before I or anyone seems mentally prepared even if we have been wishing for snow for the ski area and the moisture it provides for the trees of our forest. And they come most years in one, two, three punches that hardly allow you to get your driveway cleared. The county plows struggle with the blowing snow and none of the drivers know where the bar ditches are. Hint - they are under the smooth snow just before the piles the plow has made on the edges. Osha Road And there are just more gra...